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SOME FACTS 



HISTORY OF MINNESOTA; 



ADDRESSED TO 



ALEXANDER RAMSEY, 

FIRST GOVERNOR OP MINNESOTA AND FIRST PRESIDENT OF ITS 
HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 



EDWARD D. NETLL. 



SAINT PAUL, MINN.: 

THE PIONKER PRESS COMPANY. 

1888. 



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A NEW CHAPTER 



IN 



THE HISTORY OF MINNESOTA. 



Saint Paul, Minn., 515 Portland Avenue, July 15, 1388. 
Hon. Alexander Ramsey ^ 

Dear Sir: As the fii'st governor of Minnesota, and the first presi- 
dent of its Historical Society you encouraged historical research, and 
I have thought that you might now be interested in some facts 
recently discovered, pertaining to the period of the British rule in 
this region and which were unknown when I published the fifth 
edition of the History of Minnesota. The French surrendered Can- 
ada in 1759, and the first British commandant at the old French 
post, not at the island, but on the south shore of the Straits of Macki- 
naw, was a bold, plausible, illiterate provincial officer, Maj. Robert 
Eogers. 

In May, 1762, an escort of soldiers was sent with the canoes of 
traders to the Grand Portage of Lake Superior, now within the lim- 
its of Minnesota, and here for the first time in this region the British 
.flag was raised. Among the soldiers was Thompson Maxwell,^ whose 

1. Maxwell was born Sept. 11, 1742, in Massachusetts, and in 1757, but a boy, enlisted as a volun- 
teer and served around Lake Chainplain during the French War. In 17C>3 he was engaged in the 
fight with Pontiac at Detroit. After this war he went back to Massachusetts, married, and was a 
farmer. With his brother he was in the skirmish in April, 1775, at Concord. At Banker Hill he 
served in Col. Reed's regiment against the British. In January, 1777, he was at Princeton, N. J., 
where Gen. Hugh Mercer, of Virginia, was mortally wounded. In 1779 he was under Gen. Sullivan. 
After peace he settled near Cbarlemont, Mass., and was often a member of the legislature. In 1787 
he took up arms to suppress the Shays insurrection. In 1800 he settled in Butler county, Ohio, and in 
the war of 1812-15, over seventy years old, served under his friend Gen. Miller, was taken prisoner 
and sent to Quebec and exchanged in March, 1814. He died at Detroit at an advanced age. 



Hiil)se<iueiit career was eventful. Ho had served with Rogers dui'inii; 
the French War at Ticoiuieroga, and hcon present when Gen. 
Wolfe fell at Quebec. Returnin<j; from Grand Portage he was at De- 
troit in 1703, when the Ojibways captured the garrison at old Macki- 
naw. Afterward lie fought for the indej^endence of the Colonies at 
liunker Hill and Princeton, and was a member of the Massachusetts 
convention which accepted the constitution of the United States of 
America. 

Maj. Rogers before he came to Mackinaw had a bad reputation, 
in the lall of 17G6 he sent Jonathan Carver among the .Sioux and 
Nathaniel Potter to the Ojibways of Lake Superior for selfish pur- 
poses, and employed as his interpreter Joseph Ainnse,^ the son of a 
mechanic of the old French garrison. The region was carefully ex- 
amined, and ill 1767 Rogers proposed to Potter to secede from Great 
Britain and establish an independent government of which he would 
be the governor. Potter demurred, informed the general at Quebec, 
and Rogers was arrested for treason. 

Depeyster, a major of the Eighth regiment, Avas then placed in 
command at Mackinaw. 

On a manuscript map in possession of the state department at 
Washington, a post on the Minnesota river is marked as established 
in 1774 at Traverse des Sioux b}- Peter J*ond, a native of New Mil- 
ford, Connecticut. Through information given by him to the United 
States Treaty Commissioners the present boundary lino through the 
chain of lakes to the northwest corner of the Lake of the Woods was 
secured. 

During the War for Independence the Sioux occupied the valley 
of the Minnesota river, within the Spanish jurisdiction, although occu- 
])ie(l by Knglish trading estal)lishments. Wabasha was I'ecognized as 
the leading chief and employed to attack American and Spanish set- 
tlements toward Saint Louis, and his intei'proters were Joseph Rocque, 
and his son Augustine. 2 The commander at Mackinaw on June 14, 
177!>, wrote to his superior officer '' that Wabasha has sent Rocipie the 

1. Constance Chevallier, the sister of I>ouis, the French trader at St. Joseph, Mich., during the 
French ocfupation married .Joseph Ainnse, sonietimes 8[H;lled Haines and Hanse, a mechanic in the 
fort, on Aiij;. 30, 1711. For some time she was a widow, and on July 6, 1751, married a soldier at 
Mackinaw, Francis Louis Cardin. Her sou Joseph, the Sioux interpreter, on Oct. 6, 1775, married 
Therese, daughter of Josejih and Cecile Boudy, of Detroit. 

2. Augustin Hociiue lived for more than fifty years where the village of Wabasha below Lake 
Pepin la situated, and died a few years ago. 



interpreter, with his son, to acquaint me that he stopped at the Dog 
Plains [Prairie du Chien], being informed that Mr. Hamilton ^ was 
talcen prisoner, and desires to know if he shall attack the Sauks and 
Reynards for having stopped Gautier, and for having listened to the 
rebels [Americans]. I hear that some Chippeways of the Plains, peo- 
ple that never come in here, are on the march to attack the Sioux, 
having lately had some of their people killed." 

During the summer of 1780 Wab-ash-a came to Prairie du Chien 
with a thousand Sioux to proceed toward the English at Kaskaskia. 
The officer in charge of that post wrote to Lieut. Clowes of the 
Eighth regiment at Mackinaw on the twenty-seventh of August, 
1780, '' Gen. Wabasha was well contented with his commission, and 
believe me, his warriors are nothing inferior to regular troops in 
regard to discipline in their own way, it being their first and princi- 
pal care to examine their arms in the morning by drawing and dry- 
ing their powder and always fresh load at sunset." 

George McBeath, a Mackinaw trader, was sent to Prairie du Chien 
in April, 1783, to hold a council with the Sioux and other tribes, and 
in view of peace with the United States to urge them to cease hos- 
tility. At Mackinaw were three negroes who had been taken pris- 
oners in the Illinois country in 1781, and Capt. Robertson was un- 
willing to return them, as he writes, to '-a set of Spanish rascals." 
The negroes were retained by Robertson^ and one of them on the 
twenty-fifth of June, 1794, Jean Bonga, was married to an Indian woman 
at Mackinaw Island and his descendants are numerous in Minnesota. 
During the summer of 1783 there was a fierce conflict of the Sioux 
and Foxes with the Ojibways and there were sent to Chagouamigon 
(La Pointe) Cadotte of Sault Ste. Marie, and the Ojibway cbief 
Matchiquivis, to settle the difficulties. This chief was the same who, 
in 1763, when a young man, had surprised and killed so many of the 
garrison at Mackinaw. 

In 1784 not a single Indian from the Upper Mississippi visited 
Mackinaw, and the next year Rocque and Renville were appointed 
as interpreters to the Sioux. 

1. Henry Hamilton, in command at Detroit, was captured by Virginians in February at Fort 
Vincennes, and sent to Williamsburg, where he was imprisoned by Thomas Jefferson, then governor 
of Virginia. 

2. Robertson was, in 1754, surgeon's mate of Forty-second regiment, and afterward served at 
Martinico. In 1777 he was a lieutenant, and from 1782 to 1787 captain commanding at Mackinaw. 



Joseph Aiiiiiso w:is sciit l>y J(jlin Douse, Indian :igcnt ul Macki- 
naw, to tho mouth of the Saint Peter [now Minnesota river] to hold a 
council with the Sioux, and distribute presents. At that time J'ames 
Aird and Charles Paterson* was trading in the v^alley of the Miinnc- 
sota and Patterson's rapids near Redwood retain the name of the lat- 
ter. Ainnse arrived at the mouth of the Minnesota in October, 1786, 
and found live bands of Sioux and gave each presents. They were 
preparing to go to war against the Ojibways, and while in council he 
was interrupted 1)}' the arrival of warriors with sixteen scalps and 
three Ojibway prisoners. The women acted like demons and tore the 
bloody scalps from the men and danced and sang around them, 
and with difficulty the lives of the prisoners were preserved. The 
next day there was a grand conference, Ainnse was placed in tho 
midst on a beaver robe, presented with fifty stalks of wild rice and 
the Ojibway prisoners were dcliverd to bo taken to Sir John John- 
son, then British Suj)erintendeut of Indian Affairs. 

On the last of October, 1786, Ainnse, with Joseph Kocquc and Joseph 
Eenville,2 went above the Falls of Saint Anthony and camped. Stephen 
Cami)ion a Mackinaw trader also pitched his tent on the opposite 
side. The latter was a rival trader, and a Sioux called Little Soldier, 
dressed like a chief, with lance in hand, and few other Indians went 
to him and demanded rum. Not obtaining the milk they wanted they 
fired thcii' guns and told him to go down the river. 

During the winter Ainnse held a council with tho Tetons and 
Sissetoans at the Yellow Medicine. But they were under the in- 
fluence of Paterson who had created a chief on his own authority and 
given him a coat and a flag. Leaving the Sioux villages of the 
Upper Minnesota Ainnse crossed the prairies into the Ojibway 
country and turned back three hundred Sioux going to war. After 
a land journey of seventeen days he reached the Falls of Saint 
Anthony. He then appointed for March 14, 1787, a meeting of 
Sioux, Ojibways, and Sauks and Menomonees at a point ten 
leagues li-om the mouth of the Minnesota, where there was a 
council for several days and the Indians agreed to send delegates to 
Mackiiuiw. 



1. Ho wa.s drowned in 1788 in Lake Michigan. 

2. Henville's son Joseph, born near St. Paul of an Indian woman, was tlic Iradt.T at Lay- 
qui-I'arle. 



in May, 1787, Ainnse had reached Prairie du Chien, but the SiouX, 
under the influence of Paterson, refused to proceed farther. But by 
persuasion and presents Aile Eouge, Ecd Wing, at last changed his 
mind. At this period Robert Dickson, who became so prominent in 
the war of 1812-15, was a clerk of Dease. Complaint was made of 
Ainnse that he traded on his own account and was too fond • of 
pretty Indian girls. Some of his descendants may be citizens of 
Minnesota. 



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